1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of communications networks and in particular, relates to devices, systems and methods for authorizing applications to access location-determining technologies and systems.
2. Background of the Invention
Integrating user position data into applications enables a wide variety of new features and capabilities for cellular telephones and smartphones, including “Location Based Services”. In terms of device technology, the most common method of allowing devices to determine their position is to make use of Assisted GPS (A-GPS) technology. Broadly speaking, in such a system, the “A-GPS” chipset can use preliminary location information from an “Assistance Server” to help determine the nearest GPS satellite. Such a system has many advantages over installing a traditional GPS solution for determining the user's location, including lower cost and faster time-to-first-fix (TTFF).
However, many obstacles continue to present difficulties to the full integration of user location into cellular telephone and smartphone applications. One concern for both the telecommunication industry and its users is privacy. Disclosing the present location of a user in some circumstances could compromise user security and present liability issues for service providers and device manufacturers. For example, a rogue application gaining access to the user's location via the A-GPS chipset could conceivably disclose it to a third party without the user's authorization. Currently, protocols in place which govern the communication between Assistance Servers and A-GPS chipsets authorize access to the Assistance Server only via credentials which identify the user (such as their MSISDN), but not the application making the request for position information from the A-GPS chipset and Assistance Server.
Proposals have been made to integrate some kind of authorizing capability into the A-GPS chipset itself or the Assistance Servers which communicate with the A-GPS chipset. However, such solutions present significant technological obstacles to their implementation.
Thus, there is a clear need for devices, systems, and methods which authorize applications to access location-determining technologies on user devices and on service provider networks.